Feeling it
‘Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.’
~ from Sweet Darkness by David Whyte, 1992
I’ve been thinking about how to tackle the marketing for my new business and working out how to describe my photography style, my career path to date and my intentions for the future. While doing all this thinking I have been uncovering new thoughts about myself: who I am, where I’m going, what I want. Looking at the parts of me I don’t like and the parts I do. I don’t know why I am so surprised that I’m still shedding layers of the old to make way for the new – how could it be any other way? Days like this one come along occasionally, and I find myself dipping into old diaries and revisiting the past; I blog surf for a few hours and find posts that resonate so deeply I reel back in my chair, either with recognition of what I once had or the heart-thump in the chest of what it is I want to have once more. Tears spring, first with sadness, then salty self-pity – it can’t be helped. To let go of the past fully it seems you need to submerge yourself in it as many times as it takes to truly feel it, and then let go. There are things in my life I have been letting go off, people I have said goodbye to, either in person or quietly in my heart. One of these people is me, the woman who clung on to her hopes even when they no longer served her, who kept herself so small she could not be seen, who thought second best was better that nothing. It is on days like today that I realise that I can let go of the things that do not bring me alive, that are too small for me… the new me.
Toe-gate: Day 12
This afternoon, after two hours in A&E, I found out why my toe was still hurting so much: it’s broken. But not in the normal way, oh no. Somehow I’ve managed to chip the end of the bone off – the X-ray was pretty impressive. The doctor said it will at some point reattach itself and while I’m healing i’m to take antibiotics to help avoid infection because the doc also drilled three little holes into my nail to let the blood out (which was gruesomely pleasing).
Funny how, when I’m trying to go as fast as I can to get everything done, I now have to take it easy and rest my foot; I have to slow down. There are other ways I could have learnt the lesson, of course, but this one is not lost on me. There is no rush; the future will come.
Insert witty title here
Well, my toenail is still attached to my toe (the dried blood is keeping it on, for now), and my toe is still attached to my foot, so that’s something. However, my ability to walk has been severely impaired this past week and quite frankly I’m getting bored of hobbling about. Luckily a beloved friend is arriving tomorrow and I won’t need my foot to drink wine or gossip…
My blogging mojo has been down recently and I know it’s because i’m pouring all my energy into the new business and just generally reshaping the world around me. Time is flying by and my days are getting busier, and that’s a good thing, but occasionally I have to sit down and reflect. Some days I can’t believe where I am in my life now, compared to just twelve months ago. There’s never a point when you wake up to discover you are better; you simply collect the days as one follows another and time passes. Grief can be in your heart as strongly as it was that very first morning, but it can also retreat in the face of the busy-ness of life. The regularity of eating, sleeping and working smooths the edges of the jagged days of unending silence. The white noise of being alive carries you until you discover you really are living again; looking forward rather than back; humming a tune as you cook your dinner. It’s subtle and it’s fragile and it doesn’t take much to fall over with your toddler’s balance, but it is there, this new optimism, this new appreciation of living. Even with a poorly toe.
Public service announcement
Friends, if you ever find yourself in a supermarket wearing flip flops, be warned. Dropping a bottle of wine on your foot will cause you a great deal of physical damage. This happened to me this afternoon, and, seven hours later, my big toe is still bleeding! I think my toe nail is about to fall off and my foot does not look very pretty. Being a woman you would think i am used to the sight of blood by now, but it turns out this is a myth. Blood spilling out on to the floor of Waitrose while a spotty 18-year-old first aider tries to find a sticking plaster (yeah, like that’s gonna help) is NOT a pleasing sight.
OW!
The photo above is what i would have been making for dinner tonight for my friend and I had.I.not.dropped.a.bottle.of.bloody.wine.on.my.foot.
Saturday afternoon
I’m having such fun expanding my portfolio. Today I spent a few hectic hours with my twin step-nephews, and they both have the most smile-y faces and the most infectious laughs. It was impossible to take a bad photo of them!
2:2:2
Two years, two months, two days. I didn’t miss you yesterday, I didn’t really think about you. You are so far now, I do not sense you behind the door in the bathroom, I do not wonder if you’re hiding beneath the duvet in the dark. I catch myself wondering if I even knew you, if we’d ever met, now that you are a shadow, a breeze, a forgotten song. I miss you, but sometimes I find myself wondering whom it is I miss. That is how far away you are. Out of reach, out of sight, out of time; sometimes out of my mind. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to forget, it’s just that being alive takes up a lot of time – you knew this better than anyone else. You’re still my last thought at the end of the end though.
